From the National Alliance to End Homelessness
Yesterday evening, the House HUD Appropriations Committee released its draft FY 2012 funding bill, which included $1.901 billion for HUD’s McKinney-Vento programs – flat funding compared to FY 2011. A summary of the legislation is available here.
Specifically, the legislation would provide a total of $1.901 billion, of which $225 million would be available for the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program and approximately $1.670 billion would be available for the Continuum of Care grants program.
While we appreciate that funding for McKinney-Vento programs was not cut, we know that this funding level is insufficient to meet the needs of the increasing number of people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in the United States, and it is insufficient to fully implement the HEARTH Act. We need your help RIGHT AWAY to send a strong message to the House that the final FY 2012 HUD funding bill must include an increase in funding!
Here’s What You Can Do:
- Call your representative’s Washington, DC office. Ask to speak to the person who handles housing issues.
- Express your thanks that the draft FY 2012 HUD funding bill didn’t cut funding for McKinney-Vento programs, but explain that the current funding level is insufficient to meet the needs of homeless and at-risk people in your community. Use these sample talking points as a guide.
- Let the Alliance know which office(s) you contacted
More Information
The text of the draft legislation can be found online here (the section on McKinney-Vento funding can be found starting on page 79), and the Transportation-HUD (T-HUD) Appropriations Subcommittee’s press release on the draft bill is available here. In addition to funding HUD’s McKinney-Vento programs at least year’s level, the bill would provide $75 million for new vouchers under the joint HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program.
Overall HUD funding picture: For those of you interested in the big picture context, the chart below demonstrates that, in total, the draft House legislation provides $55.1 billion for the Departments of Transportation and HUD, or $217 million less than in FY 2011. Of that total, HUD funding would be about $38 billion – approximately $3 billion less than in FY 2011.
Also yesterday, the Senate announced how much overall funding each appropriations subcommittee – including the Transportation-HUD subcommittee – would receive. Under the Senate’s plan (as you can see above) the T-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee would receive slightly more than under the House’s plan – for a total of $55.3 billion (a 0.2 percent cut compared to FY 2011). The Senate has not yet announced when it will release its own HUD funding bill, but we’ll keep you posted. Once that bill is released, we’ll know the specific funding level the Senate is proposing for McKinney-Vento programs.
As always, thanks so much for your hard work. Let’s keep up the great work educating Congress on the importance of McKinney-Vento programs.
Please contact Amanda Krusemark at (202) 942-8256 or akrusemark@naeh.org with any questions.
